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Tabernacle Choir announces guest narrator for 2024 Christmas concerts

Film and TV actor Dennis Haysbert will be the guest narrator at the Tabernacle Choir’s 2024 Christmas concert

Actor Dennis Haysbert will narrate this year’s Christmas concert by The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square.

With the Wednesday, Dec. 11 announcement on ChurchofJesusChrist.org, both featured performers are now set for the concert’s three-night run in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. Broadway star Ruthie Ann Miles was announced in October as the guest artist.

“Dennis Haysbert has an iconic voice and a commanding stage presence, and the choir is excited to join with him in sharing the joy of Christ’s birth with the world,” choir director Mack Wilberg said.

The Christmas concerts, under the direction of Wilberg and Ryan Murphy, associate music director, will be Dec. 19, 20 and 21 in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. Tickets, which are free, were distributed through a random ticket selection.

In addition to the three evening concerts, Miles and Haysbert are scheduled to perform during the 30-minute weekly “Music & the Spoken Word” broadcast on Sunday, Dec. 22, at 9:30 a.m. Tickets are not required for the broadcast.

Also for the first time since 2019, the Conference Center will be available at its 21,000-seat capacity after seating restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then construction on and around Temple Square. A standby line will also be available at the Tabernacle on Temple Square 90 minutes prior to the 8 p.m. concerts.

“An audience always inspires the performer,” Wilberg said. “And I think having the conference, and being completely full this year will be just icing on the cake of what we do.”

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More about Haysbert and Miles

Dennis Haysbert is joining The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square as the featured narrator.
Dennis Haysbert is joining The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square as the featured narrator for the 2024 Christmas concerts at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. | John Keatley

Born in California, Haysbert has been acting for more than four decades in television and film, receiving accolades for his role first as a U.S. senator and then as U.S. President David Palmer in the television series “24.”

Haysbert also did voice-over ads for BYU football in 2006. His brother Adam Haysbert was a wide receiver for BYU in the early 1980s and was part of the 1984 national championship team.

Miles is starring in “McNeal” on Broadway in the Lincoln Center Theater. She won a Tony Award for featured actress in a musical for her performance in “The King and I” in 2015 and was also nominated for Grammy and Olivier awards. She received a Tony Award nomination in the same category for her role in the Broadway revival of “Sweeney Todd.”

Tony Award-winning actress Ruthie Ann Miles
Tony Award-winning actress Ruthie Ann Miles will join The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square as the featured guest artist at the Christmas concerts Dec. 19, 20 and 21, 2024, in Salt Lake City. | Provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Miles is also known for her role as Margaret Johnson in “The Light in the Piazza.” She has played many stage and television roles, including a recurring role in “The Americans” and “All Rise.”

Miles, a Korean-American, was raised in Hawaii in a musical household. She lives in New York with her husband, Jonathan, and daughter, Hope.

Tickets to the Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert

The concert — with the 360-voice choir, 150 instrumentalists in the Orchestra at Temple Square and 32 bell ringers from the Bells at Temple Square, all of whom are volunteers — celebrating the birth of the Savior, Jesus Christ, will be in the Conference Center at Temple Square.

Tickets are free but required for the concerts.

Tickets for the Christmas concert were distributed through a random selection process — for up to four tickets per household — that ran Oct. 15 through Nov. 1. Tickets for the Christmas concert were available to those who attended the orchestra’s sold-out fall concert on Oct. 25.

For the Christmas concert, admission will be open to those ages 8 and older. As was the case for the October 2024 general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Conference Center will be at full capacity, according to the announcement.

Organist Richard Elliott and the Gabriel Trumpet Ensemble perform during the annual The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square and Orchestra at Temple Square Christmas concert in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

The Tabernacle Choir’s Christmas concerts

The first Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert was in 2000 with soul singer Gladys Knight and “Touched By An Angel” actor Roma Downey. In 2001, Angela Lansbury, who starred in “Murder, She Wrote,” joined the choir and orchestra.

PBS began broadcasting a 60-minute recording of the previous year’s concert in 2004. Since 2017, BYUtv joined with the choir to produce the 90-minute broadcast specials.

In 2020, the live concert was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Choir and orchestra officials worked with BYUtv to produce the “20 Years of Christmas With the Tabernacle Choir” special with Tony Award-winner Brian Stokes Mitchell that aired in 2021.

In 2021, the concert had a limited audience. Broadway star Megan Hilty and actor Neal McDonough joined the choir, the Orchestra and the Bells at Temple Square and the Gabriel Trumpet Ensemble for a performance that was recorded and aired in 2022.

In 2022, “Disney Legend” and Broadway singer Lea Salonga, who is the singing voice of Princess Jasmine from “Aladdin” and Fa Mulan for “Mulan” and “Mulan II,” was a guest artist and Sir David Suchet, British stage, screen and television actor, was the narrator. The 2022 Christmas concert was opened to the public after two years of pandemic-related precautions. “Season of Light” is available again for streaming on BYUtv starting Friday, Nov. 1.

Salonga was also the guest artist during the choir and orchestra’s “Songs of Hope” tour stop in her native Philippines.

Broadway’s Michael Maliakel and "Downton Abbey’s" Lesley Nicol are join The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square as the featured guest artists for this year’s Christmas concerts at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Photo taken on Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

In 2023, Michael Maliakel, an Indian American actor and singer who was in the title role in Disney’s “Aladdin” on Broadway, and British actor Lesley Nicol who is known for her portrayal of Mrs. Patmore in “Downton Abbey” joined the choir and orchestra for the musical celebration of the Savior’s birth.

The 2023 Christmas concert — “Joy: Christmas With the Tabernacle Choir” — will be broadcast on PBS and BYUtv for the 2024 Christmas season. On PBS, it started streaming on Wednesday, Nov. 27, and the television premiere is Dec. 17, at 8 p.m. EST, and will also air on Dec. 24 at 9:30 p.m. See pbs.org/show/christmas-tabernacle-choir for broadcast information. “Joy” will also run on BYUtv from Dec. 21 to 25.

The choir has also released the CD and DVD versions of the concert.

See the Tabernacle Choir’s Christmas playlist on its YouTube channel for about two dozen songs from past Christmas concerts.

For more information, visit TheTabernacleChoir.org.

Scott Taylor of the Church News contributed to this report.

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